Of all the items the Gallagher Academy receives royalty revenues from, Band-Aids are surprisingly the most profitable.
I could hear my mother on the far side of the room, stirring things, pouring things. "Did you find them?" she called out.
I held up the nail clippers with one hand while I closed her bottom drawer with the other.
I smiled and waved my manicured fingers and thought, I am a terrible daughter.
But my mother only smiled in return, because maybe I'm also a pretty good spy.
Ironically, the one person who could explain the difference was the one person I totally couldn't ask.
I placed the nail clippers back where I'd found them and looked down at a desk that even an expert would swear had never been touched. I placed my palms against the middle drawer and felt my fingertips brush against the smooth wood of the underside, the cool metal track on which it ran. But something else, too. Something thin and worn.
"I know this semester is going to be a big adjustment for you, kiddo," Mom said. She stirred a bubbling concoction in a Crock-Pot while I pressed a finger against the paper—felt it move.
"And last semester. Well, I can only imagine what it must have been like—the reports, the debriefings."
I probably hadn't found anything important; after all, the underside of a drawer isn't a preferred hiding place for a spy—nothing about it is secure or protected. But it is a good hiding place for a woman—a place to keep something you want nearby but out of sight.
"And I want you to know," Mom went on, "that I am so proud of you."
Yes, that's right, not only was I invading my mother's personal space right under her nose, but that's the moment she chose to tell me how proud she was of my new-and-improved behavior! It was official:
I was a terrible person.
Then I felt the paper give. It fluttered through the air and landed right on my lap. And from that point on I barely heard a word my mother said.
Dad. It was a picture of Dad—but like no picture I'd ever seen, because for starters, he looked older than he did in the pictures Grandma had given me, and younger than he did in the pictures of him and my mom. And in this picture, my father wasn't alone.
Mr. Solomon's arm was around my father's shoulders. They stood on a baseball field. They were young. They were strong. And if I hadn't known better, I would have sworn they were both immortal.
But I did know better. And that, I guess, was the problem.
"Did you find what you needed, sweetheart?" Mom asked, and I thought it was a really good question. I aimed my watch at the photo, imagined the faint click as I took a picture. "Cam," Mom said again, moving toward me.
"I'm not feeling too well," I said, and slipped the picture back to where my mother kept it hidden. From me. From herself. From whoever. I moved away from the desk, toward the door. "Can I maybe have a rain check on supper?"
"Cam," Mom said, stopping me. She put her hand against my forehead like Grandma Morgan always does. "It could be a cold—you know something has been going around." I did know. I'd already seen the proof in her trash can.
"I think I just need to go to bed," I said. "It's pretty late."
But then I opened the door, and there, in the Hall of History, I saw Bex.
And Liz was sitting on her shoulders.
Chapter Five
Time's a strange thing at the Gallagher Academy. Usually it flies. But sometimes it gets really, really slow. Needless to say, this was one of those times.
The Operatives modified a Mobile Observation Device (aka Macey's new digital camera) and attached it to the bookcase across from the entrance to the headmistress's office with a Retractable Adhesion Unit (aka duct tape) and programmed it to take pictures at ninety-second intervals.
Down the corridor, I saw Macey kneeling in front of the mysteriously locked door to the East Wing.
The Operatives secured an Entry/Exit Detection Device (aka a piece of string) to the doorknob in question, knowing it would fall off if the door was opened in The Operatives' absence.
For a split second, everything seemed to freeze, but then I heard my mom say, "What is it, Cam?" She walked toward me.
"Nothing." I closed the door and leaned against it. "It's just…" It's just that my friends are completely insane and on the other side of this door right now, doing things that they really aren't supposed to be doing, and if you catch them you'll be really mad—or proud—but probably mad.
"It's just … I wanted to tell you that I think I'm really in a good place this semester." (Because technically, at that moment, the best possible place was between the headmistress and my roommates.) "And I was thinking about what you said," I went on. "I'm committed to—"
But then a bang on the door cut me off, and I had a bad feeling that Liz had fallen from Bex's shoulders and knocked herself unconscious on the doorknob.
"Cam," Mom said, inching closer. "You gonna get that?"
But I didn't dare turn around. "Get what?" Another knock. "Ooooh. Thaaaat."
I opened the door. Please let it be Bex, I prayed. Or Liz … Or Macey … Or …
Anyone but Joe Solomon!
Oh my gosh! Could the night get any worse? Yes, it turns out—it could. Because not only was one of the CIA's best secret agents standing in front of me, but my best friends in the world were twenty feet behind him, being secretive and agenty! (I know because I could see Macey's hand holding a compact around the corner to see whether or not the coast was clear. Which, obviously, it wasn't!)